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Looking For Love? Bay Ridge Is the Place To Be!

Looking For Love? Bay Ridge Is the Place To Be!

By Paula Katinas
Brooklyn Eagle

Bay Ridge — New York is an exhilarating place to live, but it can be a tough place to find love. Ask any single woman about the dearth of eligible guys in the city and you'll be met with a nod of the head and a shrug of resignation.

There are more unmarried women living in New York than there are single men, according to U.S. Census figures. You know what that means, ladies. You face stiff competition in your effort to land a man.

But a report came out this week that is punching holes in the U.S. government statistics. It turns out that while women outnumber men in the city as a whole, men outnumber women in the 20 to 34 age group, according to a study conducted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC)

There are 742,400 unmarried men between the ages of 20 and 34 in New York City, the E.D.C. study found. There are 729,500 single females in the same age group.

And here's more good news, ladies. There are pockets of the city where there are more men than women.

Bay Ridge is one of those pockets, according to the study. There are slightly more single men between the ages of 20 and 34 in Bay Ridge than there are women in the same age range.

For every single woman, there are between 1.26 and 1.73 men, the study found.

The same is true of Sunset Park and Borough Park. Bensonhurst faired less well, but still had a ratio that favored women, according to the study. For every unmarried woman between the ages of 20 and 34 in Bensonhurst, there are 1.06 and 1.25 men in the same age group.

The statistics are listed on Statssee, a column written by economists in the Economic Research & Analysis Department at the E.D.C. that appears on the agency's website www.nycedc.

“I'm not surprised by these numbers,” said Maria “The Ice Cream Girl” Campanella, the well known community leader in Bensonhurst. “A lot of great looking Italian guys have moved out of Bensonhurst. In neighborhoods like Sunset Park and Borough Park, the young people stay around longer. They're family oriented. And Bay Ridge, it's easier for women to meet guys in Bay Ridge because you have all those great bars!” she said.

Campanella said she herself is not single, but added “I like to flirt.”

Cindy Galdal-Ruperto, director of OASIS Tri-State Singles Events, said it's important to look past the statistics.

“I think the finding that men outnumber women in those areas would be good news to many single women but in the long run wouldn't make much of a difference. They would argue that it's quality rather than quantity that matters. What they're concerned about is how many of the single men are really good prospects and capable of having a committed relationship,” Galdal-Ruperto said.

“I would take it a step further saying that even that doesn't matter. What really matters are the choices woman make in their dating lives,” she said.

“Many waste years choosing the same emotionally unavailable men over and over again that can't give them what they want. These women need to do their own soul searching and stop blaming the male population for their own shortsightedness. They also need to decide to stick to their own values and not compromise them. One way to do that is to seek out like-minded men that share those values and not settle for less,” she said.